Climate change

Tackling climate change is one of the greatest challenges we face – and public audit has a clear role to play. Experts have warned that urgent and decisive action is needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and build resilience to the impacts of climate change.

Audit Scotland reports on how the Scottish public sector is responding to the climate emergency and how public money is being used to help achieve Scotland’s climate change ambitions.

Audit Scotland also aims to lead by example with our organisational response to climate change, by managing our own operations in a way that minimises our negative environmental impact. We report annually on progress towards our environmental targets.

Featured work

Skip links

Topics

What's on this page

Publications

Audit work:

Our organisational response:

Data and exhibits

The exhibits below are taken from the Sustainable transport: Reducing car use report, which shows the breakdown of Scotland’s greenhouse gas emissions and Scotland’s councils’ approach to addressing climate change.

 

Exhibit from the Sustainable transport report
Exhibit from the Sustainable transport report, showing the breakdown of Scotland’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Exhibit from Scotland’s councils’ approach to addressing climate change
Exhibit from Scotland’s councils’ approach to addressing climate change, which shows national targets and outcomes for climate change.
Exhibit from Scotland’s councils’ approach to addressing climate change
Exhibit from Scotland’s councils’ approach to addressing climate change, which shows climate change projections for Scotland.

Resources

  • The Scottish Government’s Climate Change Plan (updated December 2020) sets out its approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions across a range of sectors: Scottish Government Climate Change Plan Update.
  • The Climate Change Committee advises the UK and devolved governments on reducing emissions and adapting to the impacts of climate change, and reports on progress: Climate Change Committee Scotland Reports
  • The Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee of the Scottish Parliament leads scrutiny of policies and progress relating to climate change and wider environmental issues: Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
  • The Scottish Parliament Information Centre prepares impartial briefings on climate change to help support parliamentary business: Scottish Parliament Information Centre
  • The Sustainable Scotland Network (SSN) is Scotland’s public sector network on sustainability and climate change and provides events and resources to support public bodies’ climate action: Sustainable Scotland Network (SSN)
  • The Adaptation Scotland programme provides advice and support to help the public sector, businesses and communities be prepared and resilient to the effects of climate change: Adaptation Scotland
  • The Improvement Service shares learning and offers support to local government to help the sector meet its climate ambitions: Improvement Service
  • Environmental Standards Scotland (ESS) is a public body set up to independently monitor and investigate the effectiveness of environmental law in Scotland and public bodies’ compliance with it: Environmental Standards Scotland (ESS)

Get in touch

To find out more about Audit Scotland’s work on climate change or let us know what you think about this page, please contact:

Rebecca Seidel, Senior Manager 
RSeidel@audit-scotland.gov.uk